Alice Kao has overcome many challenges in her life. She lost her father when she was 3, grew up attending six schools in three countries, before finally growing up in the US as a parachute kid. Since then, she became an investment banker to make her mom proud, shifted into running sales & marketing in the toy industry. Alice is now the Founder and CEO of SenderOne, one the largest world-class rock climbing gyms both in Los Angeles and Orange County. Sender One is dedicated to helping people discover themselves and connect with others through climbing.

What an episode! In this one we hit on:

• How and why interest in indoor climbing has grown tremendously.
• What it was like being a CEO during covid. Making hard decisions and how Alice decided and shut down a 100+ person company.
• How to build coalitions in industries and what Alice learned from building a climbing gym coalition.
• How to create personal / company values and then share them in a way that company-wide, employees make aligned decisions.
• What Alice learned growing up as a "parachute kid" for 4 years.
• What does the label "trauma" really mean? What do you address during therapy? How do you choose what to address?
• How Alice's experience in the toy industry drives strategic decision making in creating rock climbing gyms.
• How asking questions without embarrassment can be a super power
• What Alice took away from trying Ayahuasca
• Improving yourself to be an even better role model for your kids.

Gil Cheung is Chinese American. But his parents were born in Mauritius. A small island off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. So his parents native tongue was French. They moved to Virginia where Gil was born. He grew up competing in US Math Olympiads and National Spelling bees. Gil graduated MIT with a Computer Science major but went to medical school instead. He received his medical degree and radiology residency at WashU - one of the top 3 radiology training programs in the country. Today Gil is a Partner Physician Radiologist at Kaiser Permanente.

When his daughter Sabrina was 4, she started having seizures and it kept him really busy as a father for many years. Thankfully, after years of searching and finding a solution, the seizures have stopped and given him more time to pursue his own interests.

Will, Lee, and Andrew get started with a conversation about Venture Capital. Then we get into our next interviews and the process behind getting them started.

Will, Lee, and Andrew talk about the processes we  need to start the podcast again. How can we make it easy and fun again? Also... Shang Chi,

Will, Lee, and Andrew talk about traveling and how that's added perspective since COVID. We also talk about Shang Chi and what we thought about it.

• The Ringer: The Reclamation of Shang-Chi
• Accented Cinema: How Tony Leung Acts With His Eyes | Video Essay
• GQ: Hong Kong Legend Tony Leung Tries His Hand at Hollywood
• They Call Us Bruce: They Call Us Dave Callaham

Will, Lee, and Andrew discuss what happened during the break and starting the podcast again. We have an honest conversation about where we are in our lives and in our careers.

Derek Yang has spent the past decade building creator communities and products at YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and Yik Yak. He writes a newsletter where shares his learnings on the creator economy: Advance the Creator Economy.

The creator economy is a very much growing trend of content creators making a living, doing what they love. People are turning to creators as  trusted advisors. Brands no longer win with the biggest marketing budget. You can only win if you earn the people's trust. And how do you earn the trust? You embed your brand with the creators.

In this episode we ask Derek about.

• Why his high school friends call him Larry
• Being a door-to-door salesman selling internet to small businesses
• His time at Facebook working with athletes and celebrities
• The dramatic rise and fall of Yik Yak and why it happened
• What he worked on at Twitch
• The conversation within YouTube during Stop AAPI Hate
• What is the creator economy
• What makes a successful creator?
• What do NFTs mean for creators
• How do creator platforms work?
• How fans find and consume content
• Clubhouse and how it might fail
• What the Will and Lee Show can do to cultivate our community and grow

Find Derek online :

• Newsletter: Advance the Creator Economy
• Twitter: @dereklyang
• IG: @derek

Please subscribe to our podcast! You can find the latest episodes and notes at: 

• Website: willandlee.show
• Instagram: @will.and.lee.show

Mindy’s mother was sent to the countryside to do manual labor during the Cultural Revolution. When the government resumed the college entrance exam, her mother out-competed the entire country to earn a spot at China's top university.

Like her parents, Mindy is a high achiever. She graduated summa cum laude from Wharton. Built the New York City product team for Dropbox. And led growth for Oscar Health as the Director of Product. Oscar Health recently IPO'd.

But she found achievement wasn't everything. Her search for meaning led her to reignite and rebuild her relationship with her mother after years of distance. She redesigned her life based on her own definition of success. Today, Mindy has taken the learnings from her journey to help other high achievers find fulfillment.

As a career coach, she partners with leaders and teams who want to achieve big things without forgetting what matters. She also has a  newsletter, The Reset. Where she writes a guide for high achievers seeking greater clarity and fulfillment.

In this episode we ask Mindy about:

• What her parents went through growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution
• How her mother developed her interests and passions as a child
• Why her mother getting diagnosed with stage 4 cancer created distanced in their relationship
• The tools she's using to redevelop her relationship with her immigrant mother
• Why she went to Wharton and what it was like
• Choosing the Google internship over BCG
• What Dropbox was like scaling from 200 to 2000 employees
• What it takes to be a good manager
• Why swing dancing changed her life
• Buying a plot of land and building a new house
• How she started out as a career coach
• How she helps her clients attain their dreams
• She reads us the story of Zumbach the Tailor

Find Mindy online :

• Website: - mindyzhang.com
• Newsletter: The Reset - A high achiever's guide to a meaningful life
• Newsletter: Building a Home
• Teaching at: https://www.thegrand.world/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/newmoniker/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindyzh/

Please subscribe to our podcast! You can find the latest episodes and notes at: 

• Website: willandlee.show
• Instagram: @will.and.lee.show

After her parents divorced, Li Ouyang took it upon herself to make money for her mom and younger brother. She hustled her way into finance and soon became rising star as a VP at JP Morgan Chase. After realizing that the finance industry was shrinking, she started her career over in tech.

Today, Li is a software engineer at Coinbase, which recently IPO'd. In this episode we ask Li about:

• Growing up Chinese in rural New Hampshire
• How she hustled her way into finance from a non-Ivy League university
• How she became a VP at JP Morgan Chase
• Why she left finance and how she became a software engineer
• Her experience in startups in Silicon Valley
• Why she she works at Coinbase
• Being a mother during COVID
• Her passion for salsa dancing

Find Li online :

• Twitter - @styliii

Please subscribe to our podcast! You can find the latest episodes and notes at: 

• Website: willandlee.show
• Instagram: @will.and.lee.show

At the age of 40, Elliot Chun left his role as a Director at Investment Banking firm, Perella Weinberg Partners, to explore building a new career in blockchain - a completely new and untested space. Today, Elliot is a Managing Director and lead for emergents.co at Weild & Co.

In this episode we delve into what motivated Elliot to transition to a career in blockchain and the following topics:

• What he does he do at emergents.co?
• How and why Elliot took on career risk to jump into blockchain
• The struggle and false starts he had when transitioning his career
• What is Bitcoin and distributed ledger technology?
• What is Ethereum?
• What is Defi (Decentralized Finance?
• What are NFTs (Non-fungible tokens)?
• The future of blockchain
• Smart cities with blockchain
• Solving climate change with blockchain

Find Elliot online :

• LinkedIn - Elliot Chun
• Emergents.co

Please subscribe to our podcast! You can find the latest episodes and notes at: 

• Website: willandlee.show
• Instagram: @will.and.lee.show